The Puerto Ricans at Carlisle Indian School

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The Puerto Ricans at Carlisle Indian School 14 file:///C:/Users/JSAVIL~1/AppData/Local/Temp/maftemp-aa1f7a4e/1392154546324_758/index... Belén Nin, after going to Carlisle, spent several years in St. Mary’s Seminary in PA. We don't know if she joined a religious order or was simply getting in touch with her Catholic roots after the Carlisle experience. Her family remembers her return to Puerto Rico and her shy demeanor. [43] Juan José Osuna went to Carlisle and, as mentioned, manipulated the system to stay out of the Indian School. Osuna, a brilliant scholar, moved around until he was able to obtain his doctor's degree in Education. He returned to Puerto Rico, worked in the University of Puerto Rico, and was one of the co-founders of the University Editorial House, Editorial Universitaria. His highly acclaimed book, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, is a well researched, scholarly study of several hundred years of education on the island. There's even a high school in Caguas, Puerto Rico, named after him. [44] Not all the Carlisle Puerto Rican stories had a happy ending. One of those is Pedro Enrique Musignac's story. The Musignac family owned the Salinas salt processing plant in Cabo Rojo, located in the southwestern coast of Puerto Rico. Nelliemar Musignac wrote: "He, or maybe a son with his same name, lost the Salinas one night while drinking and gambling." [45] 17 Conclusion After several years of researching the presence of a group of Puerto Ricans at Carlisle Indian School, I found the answers to my most compelling questions: Why were they sent to Carlisle? Who sent them? [46] They were sent to Carlisle as part of a very structured and open program to Americanize the Puerto Ricans following the Spanish American War. Council Bill 12, enacted in 1901, the Puerto Rican Legislature Bill 21 (1901), and later on House Bill 35, provided for scholarship money for twenty men and women to study at technical industrial schools in the U.S. Just like Pratt did with the Indians, visiting their leaders and convincing them of the worthiness of sending them to Carlisle, Secretary of Education Dr. Martin Brumbaugh convinced leaders of the Puerto Ricans to send their kids not only to Carlisle Indian School but also to Tuskegee and Hampton, schools created to educate the ex-slaves, now traditional African American Schools. Youngsters from Cuba were sent to Hampton and Tuskegee, too. The Indians, African Americans, and Puerto Ricans were forcibly mainstreamed and education was used as a principle tool on the island of Puerto Rico as well as on the mainland: North American teachers arrived at the island with the sole purpose of teaching in English. It was the intent not only to substitute the language but also change the value system and 'Americanize' the Puerto Ricans through the educational process. [47] 18 Edwin Grant Dexter, Commissioner of Education of Puerto Rico, wrote in his annual report: "In accordance to sections 68 to 77 of the school law of Puerto Rico a number of young men are being maintained in various schools and colleges in the United States at the expense of the government of Puerto Rico." [48] 19 José-Manuel Navarro poignantly calls the process the same thing that he titled his book, Creating Tropical Yankees. Navarro's book presents in detail the history of education in Puerto Rico and how the schools were used openly for the Americanization of the masses. The
15 he Puerto Ricans at Carlisle Indian School file:///C:/Users/JSAVIL~1/AppData/Local/Temp/maftemp-aa1f7a4e/1392154546324_758/index... U.S. government had no qualms, like many other conquerors have done after their conquest; in creating a cadre of acculturated, Americanized, and assimilated youngsters. Those youngsters who were educated in the U.S., and their descendants after them, were very successful after returning to Puerto Rico, and still surnames like Rexach, Padín, Duchesne, Seguí, Urrutia, Nin, Musignac, Orriola, Piñero, and Seijo are part of the intellectual, business, and political scene of the island. [49] Samuel McCune Lindsay, Secretary of Education for Puerto Rico (1902), made a very poignant and, I believe, accurate statement in his annual report : "Colonization carried forward by the armies of war is vastly more costly than that carried forward by the armies of peace, whose outpost and garrisons are the public schools.” [50] 20 An important question remains: Were those kids who were sent to the Carlisle Industrial Indian School Taíno Indians? I believe that there is no right answer to that question. The Taínos had a sad yet surprising history. When the Spaniards came to the lands they inhabited in the Caribbean, the Taínos were expecting them, warned by a prophecy that told them they were going to receive the visit of white/dressed people who would kill them. The theory of the total extinction of the Taínos was repeated generation after generation like a gospel in the Antilles, yet the truth is that the Taínos made themselves "invisible" to survive in the middle of the oppressive forces of the conquistadors. The latest DNA research performed by Dr. Juan Carlos Martínez-Cruzado proves the existence of that invisible nation among the Puerto Ricans today. In scientific testing that has been conducted during the last three years across the island, Taíno mitochondrial DNA is being found in an astonishing percentage of the Puerto Rican people. [51] On the other hand, we have genealogy. Right now the genealogy of the Puerto Ricans whom I have been able to trace points to Spain. We need to remember that the history of the Taínos is oral and that genealogy is a document-filled endeavor. To get a direct, exact and correct answer as to whether or not those students who were sent to the Carlisle Industrial Indian School were Taíno Indians, we may need to use more technology. DNA technology that can read the complete spectrum of the hereditary genes probably will solve the riddle in the near future, when it is more easily available and more affordable. [52] The issue here should not be the Indian-ness of the Puerto Ricans who were sent to Carlisle, but the fact that they were treated like the Indians. They were classified as inferiors and not as the equals of other American students. [53] The legacy of Carlisle is filled with contradictions. Some students spoke of the horrors and the prison-like atmosphere of Carlisle, while others called it home and mentioned the school with fondness and warmth. Which were sincere? Were some suffering from a type of brainwashing or from the Stockholm Syndrome? Were they grateful for their professional successes? Mitchell Bush, president of the American Indian Society, said about the Indian school system: [54] I've seen some of the more positive side. I think one thing it did for us is teach us English… we can all understand and communicate with you. [55] 21 I would like to conclude by mentioning the text of the marker that was newly inaugurated on September 1, 2003, in front of the Carlisle
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The Puerto Ricans at Carlisle Indian School

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